THE HUNTBACH FAMILY OF SEAWALL AND FEATHERSTONE

The Huntbach family who had lived at Seawall, (Sewall or later Showell and
Show Hill), since the sixteenth century were tenants of the Levesons. About the
middle of the seventeenth century they moved to the other side of the parish to
Featherstone Hall, which still stands, as Stabbing Shaw said, on the road from
Bushbury to Shareshill. (Featherstone was an additional part of Wolverhampton
parish and not in Bushbury). In 1700 John Huntbach of Featherstone bought the
manor of Seawall from Richard Leveson. A house stood on a moated site, the last
being demolished about 1930. (At the beginning of the eighteenth century the
occupier of Seawall was Richard Paddey, possibly a forbear of the nineteenth
century local artist.)

John Huntbach (born 1639) was the son of Thomas of Seawall and his wife Anne
(daughter of John Astley of Woodeaton). Our knowledge of Bushbury's early
history owes much to John Huntbach. Thomas' sister Margery was the wife of Sir
William Dugdale, whose 'History of the County of Warwick' was one of the
earliest county histories. There seems little doubt that John was influenced by
his uncle, and took a great interest in the history of his native parish. His
manuscripts were an important source of information for the Reverend Stebbing
Shaw writing at the end of the eighteenth century. He also made transcripts from
the early Bushbury parish registers until 1637. As the registers were lost in a
fire this transcript is all that survives of that early part of the register,
although regrettably, as a seventeenth century historian, he transcribed only
these entries which were of interest to him, i.e. those of the landowning
families. He married Mary, second daughter of John Gough of Oldfallings on
October 21st 1658, and was buried at Bushbury on February 13th 1704.

Eight children were born of the marriage, but only one of the four sons,
Rupert (born December 16th 1668) married. His wife was Sarah, daughter of Edward
Cooke of London. Their only son Fowke, (born at Wolverhampton on April 16th
1712) was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he matriculated in November
1729, but died in the following February. Rupert died in November 1734 and has a
memorial on the east wall of the south aisle of the church. Fowke and his mother
also have memorials on the same wall. The other child of the marriage Sarah
(born 1710) who married Samuel Hellier of Wombourne Woodhouse; their son became
Sir Samuel Hellier. (There was an earlier connection between the Huntbach family
and Wombourne Woodhouse. Mary Huntbach, aunt of Sarah's grandfather, John the
historian, married John Woodhouse of Wombourne. He died in 1651.) Sir Samuel
Hellier's mother died in 1745, and his father in 1751, but his maternal
grandmother Sarah Huntbach lived until 1783.

Among the very extensive collection of family records which survive are many
letters of Sarah Huntbach of Featherstone, her daughter Sarah Hellier, and her
son Sir Samuel. Young Sarah, newly arrived in London and awaiting the birth of
her son writes to her mother on March 2nd 1731:-

"Hon'd Madam,

When you was with us, you was so kind to promiss me anything in Babycloths
that you have, if you will be so good to send me your clouts and other
things you can spare, I should take it as a grate favour and it will save me
a deal of trouble now I am Making. I find it a deale of worke & I must beg
an answer about ye nurse pray get her if you can. I went yesterday to see ye
Nobility go to court. I never see people dres'd so fine in my life, both man
and woman, all ye men in dark browns, trim'd with gold and silver & ye ladys
had on dark green and browns trim'd with gold and silver, to the top of ye
pretty cloths, and others had rich French silks & rich imbroidered all upon,
very dark collers, & every Lady I see had base tipits, ye same of there
heads I suppose, at night we had fine fireworks upon ye water, great
rcjoicings, as aws possable. I fear I can write nothing more that is
agreeable so must conclude with Mr. Hellier's duty and to my father and
youself from me, Your most dutyful daughter S.Hellier." "P.S. I here Mr.
Jeford [Gifford?] is married & took his lady into Staffordshire."

Old Mrs. Huntbach, referred to by her grandson as "the old lady", kept a very
tight hold on the major part of the family finances from her Featherstone home,
although the young man had the income from the Wombourne estate. By the early
1760s he was living in London and complaining that his limited resources prevent
him from marrying. He writes to his friend Thomas Hatrell, attorney at
Newcastle, Staffs:

November 3rd 1761.

"How can you be so deaf to the charms of the Dear Sex, Sure you are
made of stone. I am convinced one hours Chatt. with a truly virtuous woman
is preferable to a whole years enjoyment with a whore"

January 2nd 1762.

"There's only Two things worth seeking for in life, a good share of
health and a fine elegant Woman. I don't wish to live longer than I have
both."

By May 1763 he had returned to Wombourne and writes to Hatrell of his
longing for married life: "Being in the heyday of the Blood, as my favourite
Shakespeare expresses himself, "I am wasting the very Prime Part of my days
in a Lonely Country House where I've no society or such as my ideas cannot
square with." "Myself with no relations and as few Fetters as any of them
live not so well as a Wolverhampton mecanick." "The feelings, the passions,
the ideas of flesh and blood frail nature's imperfections I am refused. Even
the barbourous Hottentots are better off. I have often declared I should be
unhappy till I could either keep a woman in the Face of the World or have a
wife."

But twenty years later he is still denied the income which would enable him
to marry. In a series of letters to John Rogers at Wombourne, (presumably his
steward) he continually presses him to ensure that his tenants pay their rents
promptly and in coin of the realm, not post dated bills, but also to use all
means to try to extract money from "the old lady".

January 17th 1782.

"The old lady being so well pleased with her present now is it time
for Mrs. Beech to follow her up close, while she is in the humour, some of
her Golden Guineas would be very acceptable."

September 12th 1782.

"Get Mr. Livingstone to make a point of it, and use every possible
means whatever to get ye old lady to lend me Sixty Pds. or else to Borrow it
somewhere, among her acquaintance. I cannot do without it, my illness lasts
so long, and is very expensive, and ye Doctor saies nothing will do any good
but Bath water, and to which place I must go within a fortnight from this
date." He was suffering from Gout.

September 21st 1782

"The few remarks I shall make upon ye old lady are these that she
has a heart as hard as a Rock, of most Tyrranical cruel and uncharitable
disposition."

Two months later he turns on Staffordshire people in general:

November 11th 1782.

"The Staffordshire People continue in ye rough uncivilized state
they were in when William ye Conqueror subdued them. Enjoy Hatred and Malice
and all uncharitable men, but I except individuals, and you amongst ye
number who I entertain a very good opinion of."

August 1782

He requests John Rogers to approach Miss Phillips* of Shareshill to
use her good influence with the old lady to send him money.

December 22nd 1782.

"Miss Phillips [presumably Elizabeth, elder sister of Mary] should
persuade ye old lady to leave housekeeping and live easy and quiet, with her
at Shareshill and give me possession, which would be serving me and herself
to."

His long wait was almost over. Mrs. Huntbach died on January 11th 1783. The
Bushbury Parish Register says that she gave a silver flagon to the church in
1741, and that her memorial tablet gave her age as 99 years.

T.H.F.Whitgreave says in his diary:

"Today they buried Mrs. Huntbach of Featherstone at Bushbury. My
father was at the funeral. A hearse and six horses attended to take her to
Bushbury."

Sir Samuel Hellier did not enjoy his inheritance for long, dying on October
12th 1784, (not 1748 as stated in Shaw), and being still unmarried and childless
bequeathed the estate to the Reverend Thomas Shaw, son of James Shaw, a Dudley
solicitor. On July 18th 1786 the Reverend Shaw took the name of Shaw-Hellier. He
lived at the Woodhouse but served as minister of St.John's Wolverhampton and of
Tipton and was Perpetual Curate of Claverley. He died in July 1812 and was
buried with his wife Mary at Wombourne. His son James was manager of Netherton
colliery and one of his sons, Samuel, married Mary Ann Willington of Brinsford
at Bushbury on August 7th 1832. In 1841 they were living at Wobaston. James died
in 1827; when his wife Elizabeth died in 1835 she was living at Barnhurst.
Indirect descendants of James' brother Thomas remain at the Woodhouse and there
are several memorials to the family in Wombourne church.

Group Scoutmaster Jack
Hughes and scouts of the First Bushbury Scout Group, summer
1938, at Shaw Road Mission Room.

Shaw Road presumably took its
name from the Shaw Hellier Family, owners of the land on which
it stands.